By: Leonardo Neri

In 2013, the Brazilian judicial system recognized for the first time the applicability of the right to be forgotten, in a trial held by the 4th Panel of the Superior Court of Justice, with unanimous decisions on two special appeals filed in a lawsuit filed against Rede Globo de Televisão.

This judgment became a major landmark in jurisprudence on the subject, which had already been recognized as a form of expression of the principle of human dignity, through Statement No. 531, of the VI Civil Law Conference.

However, the recent decision issued by the Supreme Federal Court may change the direction of the jurisprudential understanding. This is because the STF denied the Extraordinary Appeal (RE) 1010606, with recognized general repercussion, under the understanding that the application of the right to be forgotten to prevent the dissemination of true facts would be incompatible with the Federal Constitution.

In this specific case, the family members of the victim of a crime that occurred in 1950 were seeking compensation due to the reconstruction of the crime in 2004, by Rede Globo, on the program Linha Direta.

For the Ministers, the right to be forgotten must be assessed on a case-by-case basis and cannot automatically override other fundamental rights, especially the right to freedom of expression. Minister Carmen Lúcia also emphasizes the principle of solidarity between generations, recalling the importance of historical records being exposed to future generations.